In case you missed it, there's a new Humble Bundle going on right now (since two days ago). Over the years we’ve seen a variety of games offered up on the Humble Bundle; some have been pretty ho-hum, while others have been well worth the price of admission; many of the games have been indie affairs. Of course, the price of admission is practically free: it’s whatever you want, starting at a whopping $1 – yes, that's an entire dollar rather than the original starting point of a penny for the Humble Bundle. The latest version comes courtesy of EA’s Origin, and rather than the usual indie games, and you get six AAA games from EA that range from okay to unappreciated gems to major blockbusters.

Any contribution will get you all six of the following games; I’ve included the current retail (Origin) pricing on each as a reference point: Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box ($19.99), Crysis 2 Maximum Edition ($29.99), the original Dead Space ($19.99), the latest Dead Space 3 sequel ($39.99), Mirror’s Edge ($19.99), and Medal of Honor ($19.99). So if you were to buy just those six games off of Origin right now, you’d be paying nearly $150 – not that I’d suggest you do so, but if you’ve missed any of them and are looking for a diversion, they’re not bad. [And now Red Alert 3: Uprising and Populous; see below.]

As an added bonus, if you pay more than the current average Humble Bundle price ($4.80 at the time of writing), you get two additional titles. Battlefield 3 ($19.99) hardly needs an introduction, and the same goes for The Sims 3 (Starter Pack – $29.99). The Starter Pack comes with the main game as well as the High-End Loft and Late Night expansion packs. So, less than $5 can currently net you eight games, most of which are worth a look, and all of which are big budget titles.

The hook for the Humble Bundle is that you get to choose how your contribution is distributed. You can given any percentage to one of five charities (Human Rights Campaign, Watsi, San Francisco AIDS Foundation, American Cancer Society, and American Red Cross), or you can give a “Humble Tip” to the Humble Bundle people for their time and bandwidth involved with the promotion. You can also gift the purchase to someone else if you like.

Of course there’s always a catch, right? Sure, and this time it’s pretty simple: some of the games as you might have guessed have to be used through EA’s Origin service. Now, I didn’t much care for the initial launch of the EA Downloader, which later became Origin, but things have at least improved. I don’t know that it’s equal to Steam, as transferring games between computers is a bit more of a pain, but it’s not terrible at least. Of the eight titles, three are only available with Origin (Battlefield 3, Dead Space 3, and The Sims 3 – these things come in threes or something?); the other five games can be used with either Steam or Origin – or even both! How’s that for generous?

The instructions note that you redeem the codes for the Sims 3 through the Sims 3 web page, but the instructions from EA for redeeming the expansion packs are incorrect: you need to redeem those through Origin (or via "Register a Product"). At least when I did it, the Sims 3 My Store Account section has “Redeem a Code”, but it only has blocks for four parts of the code, and my codes were five blocks of four characters. Oops. There was also some sluggishness with Origin as I was writing this, perhaps caused by a deluge of Humble Bundle downloads.

However you want to look at it, for practically free you can enjoy some of the past three or four years of gaming action. That’s a price that’s hard to beat, and hey: it’s for charity, so feel free to be generous! There are currently just under 12 days remaining on this offer.

8/22/2013 Update: Humble Bundle just sent out a note that they've added Red Alert 3: Uprising and Populous to the Humble Origin Bundle. Anyone that has already purchased the bundle receives the keys, along with any future purchasers. For what it's worth, I have fond memories of playing Populous back in the day, on an Amiga no less, but I have to admit it's getting a little long in the tooth. Anything that requires DOSbox to run might be better served living in your fond memories instead of being dusted off to discover how badly it's aged. Well, except for Wasteland....

" So who cares, if I have to keep track of a few more client installs"

You don't even have to do that. Just place a shortcut on desktop and it will launch the right client.I don't buy many games on Origin unless I have to as they are pretty high priced there and they keep that high price for a long time. But I have bought some game there and I bought the bundle for 1.00 and its was real worth it even though I had half of them on Steam already. DeadSpace3 for a buck alone is a steal. For a deal like that I'll install anyone’s client lol.

And yes they were flooded and their code redemption server was down for a time, BIG DEAL! it happens even with Steam. Ever buy a hot title on Steam on release day? If you had you would know they almost always have trouble on launch day for big titles.

I also think people hate EA because they seldom patch games. DeadSpace 3 has a problem with some Hid game controllers and crashes on start up yet EA hasn't fixed it and probabaly never will. I have to unplug my Throttle to get the game to even launch but hey I only paid a $1.00 so I don't give rats ass. lolReply

Unfortunately, I refuse to use the Origin service as it collects way too much data. Until they change their data collection policies, I am forced to not play EA games. It is a real shame as I love the Battlefield series and cannot play anymore.Reply

Just a side note about redeeming the Sims 3 expansions. You can actually do it through the Sims webpage, it's just that you have to click "Register A Game" rather than "Redeem A Code" and it works like a charm - you just need to refresh your Origin library afterwards. The "Register A Game" section has five blocks. Hope this clears the issue.Reply